Describing the trends in air traffic as "encouraging", it said the domestic traffic had grown by 9.3 per cent last year over the previous year.

The demand for travel to India from other countries in the winter of 2003 also increased by nearly 23 per cent, the Survey said.

The private sector airlines, it said, together accounted for over 60 per cent of domestic air traffic.

In addition to Indian Airlines and three other scheduled private carriers, there were 37 operators providing air taxi or non-scheduled air transport services in the domestic sector.

On airports, it said the Airports Authority of India was currently in the process of setting up two separate companies for restructuring and modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports and an empowered Group of Ministers had been set up to oversee the process.

Two new greenfield airports are also proposed to be set up at Bangalore and Hyderabad, the document said.